Our summer started out much differently than we originally planned. We keep things generally low key so that when unexpected or spontaneous things come up, it's then the main focus. It becomes our plan. We are never too busy and I like that.
The end of May caught the whole Ockrin family in a bit of a whirl wind. Life seemed to go on hold as we waited news of any kind from Gabe's youngest brother and his pregnant wife great with child. She was told at her 38 week check up that the heart beat could not be detected. An ultrasound the next day confirmed it. Death.
By the grace of God she carried that baby for yet another month and all the while we prayed labor would start naturally and that grace would be upon her. Time went by. We prayed and even believed for a miracle. Labor was finally induced and she bought forth her first son. They went home with no baby.
We gathered. We remembered. We mourned with family. And we hugged our kids a little tighter as the reality of even their lives before they even enter this world serve a greater purpose than just filling our hopes and dreams, a newly decorated nursery, or freshly washed and prepared Moses basket. I don't think I will look at my own pregnancies, labors, and deliveries to come quite the same again.
It still hurts when we see them. I know we will always feel the very real loss that is was, that it is. They were left with shattered pieces, hopes, and dreams. I can't fathom the depths their despair took them. But they aren't staying there and they aren't picking the pieces up alone. They weren't the moment she was told they couldn't find the heart beat. In fact, her journal (from months in advance before this was even known) in times spent with the Lord showed Him preparing her heart, revealing His goodness and close affection to her without her even knowing it. She had her journal at the service and thereafter so that when I found a spare moment I soaked in His goodness. I soaked in their pain but it was covered with grace so thick. It was unbelievable. So real. There in writing and she didn't at the time even know it. His presence. Despite the outcome to come, His hand was holding hers. She was even writing it all down and she attests to it this day.
I cried a lot. I cried because yes it was sad. No one wants to lose a baby full term. But I cried because I really love Jesus. Our lives don't start and stop on earth. We aren't left to walk these roads, whatever they may be, alone. Things happen. Really really sad things. You don't have to look far. Your own home or marriage is enough to reveal there is something wrong. There is something vying for our very lives, our joy, our health, our relationships. And it's very real, and yet the grace of God is bigger. His hand was with my sister in law despite the road they unknowingly set out upon.Yes God allowed it, but He was not the result of it.
It is our sin. Not even personally at times, but corporately. And we all contribute to it.
That God in our frailness would look upon us and have compassion to deal with us out of love and an uncontrollable ache that moves Him to then pick up the broken and even ugly pieces at times with us, binding them together stronger than before and administering healing and grace and change if need be, is so much beyond me these days. Though I have known of God since I was a little girl, I am knowing Him now in ways maybe life just didn't allow for before, but rather experience. He is still faithful. And He is unchanging. He is not mocked. And He is not surprised. He still loves me. And goodness is written all over His face no matter what trials I go through or see happen to others. He is the good factor in it all. He is the only thing that is good.
It's an indescribable feeling to know just how God is good and good personally to others. He reveals himself to those that love Him and it's faith building when you hear of it from others. To have experienced that with Hannah and John Paul through their trial is something I will never forget. It's one more thing I get to give Him praise for. My soul can find one more reason among 10,000 to bless His name, and so I do.
"We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed." 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
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